Candidates stake out their positions

French conservative candidate Francois Fillon has pledged to keep the country under a state of emergency following the shooting of police officers Thursday in Paris.

In a statement at his campaign headquarters, Fillon said “the fight for the French people’s freedom and security will be mine. This must be the priority” of the next president.

Fillon promised to boost police and military forces.

He also said that, if elected, he would launch a “diplomatic initiative” aiming to create an international collaboration against Islamic extremists that would include all major actors, including the United States, the European Union, Russia, Iran, Turkey and the Gulf countries.

France has been under a state of emergency since the 2015 attacks by Islamic extremists in Paris.

Fillon hopes his experience as prime minister from 2007 to 2012 and hardline views on security issues will give his campaign a boost, just two days before the first round of the vote.

The two top contenders Sunday will advance to the runoff on May 7.

Far-left presidential candidate Philippe Poutou is blaming French politics for the deadly attack on Paris’ Champs-Elysees, in which a police officer and the attacker were killed.

A bullet impact is pictured on a window in the entrance hall of a building on the Champs Elysees avenue in Paris, on April 21, 2017 a day after a gunman opened fire on police on the avenue, killing a policeman and wounding two others in an attack claimed by the Islamic State group just days before the first round of the presidential election. (Philippe Lopez/AFP/Getty Images)

Poutou, a car-factory worker backed by anti-capitalist party NPA, says the roots of extremist attacks are neither in mosques nor migrant camps. He said: “They are in the situation of external and internal war maintained by the state, and in the injustice and discriminations maintained in the suburbs.”

Poutou says the French state has to share the blame for attacks because it discriminates against people living in impoverished suburbs because of “their skin color or origins,” takes military action in Africa and the Middle East and sells arms to dictatorships.

Far-right leader and candidate for the presidential election Marine Le Pen speaks in Paris, Friday, April 21, 2017, one day after the attack that killed one police officer and wounded three other people. Le Pen campaigns against immigration and Islamic fundamentalism. (AP Photo/Michel Euler)

Far-right presidential candidate Marine Le Pen called on the government to restore France’s borders immediately following the shooting of Paris officers in Paris.

The leader of the National Front wants France to exit the European passport-free Schengen area.

In a statement from her campaign headquarter in Paris, she asked the government and judicial authorities to handle the case of all individuals on the French territory known for “their adhesion to the enemy’s ideology”.

She wants foreigners signaled as Islamic radicals to be expelled from the country and French nationals identified for the same reason to face trial.

Le Pen, who has campaigned on anti-immigration views and a strong security stance, is seeking to give her campaign a last boost ahead of Sunday’s vote for the first round of the presidential election. Latest polls suggest she is in a position to be among the two top contenders and advance to the May 7 runoff.